Sharpness of the cutting edge is an essential factor for arrowheads, fishhooks, and the like. For broadhead arrows, it is necessary that the blades be razor sharp so as to effectively sever the arteries and blood vessels in the game, resulting in a quick, clean kill. Once used in practice or hunting, the blades become dulled and must be repeatedly sharpened to maintain their effectiveness. Hand-held sharpeners have been developed for this purpose to be used by the hunter in the field.
Typically, sharpeners for broadhead arrows comprise more than one sharpening surface so that two or more blades can be sharpened at the same time. The sharpener is usually divided into two sections having a groove formed therebetween. One difficulty commonly associated with such sharpeners is obtaining correct placement of the blade with respect to the surface so that each point on the blade is sharpened to the same degree. It is nearly impossible to achieve even sharpening in these configurations since the arrowhead can not be held perfectly flat with respect to the sharpening surface. This causes the amount of force applied to be unevenly distributed along the surface area of the blade contacting the sharpening surface. As a result, some points along the blade are sharpened to a greater degree than other points. Consequently, the overall sharpness of the blade is uneven and performance of the broadhead is less than optimum.